Best Supplements for Muscle Growth

In this episode, we talk about Christine gives us a quick summary of which supplements are. best. for muscle growth. We discuss Peptides, creatine, the right proteins to use, and of course Amino acids.

• Top 3 supplements for muscle growth
• Don't forget to train
• Make sure you are in a calorie surplus 
• Peptides explained
• Anti-aging supplements 

Muscle Talk - Bodybuilding podcast by International Protein

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Transcript

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Ash Horton:
Welcome to Muscle Talk where you'll get world champion advice about nutrition and stacking on muscle. Our host, Christine Envall, she's a three-time world champion bodybuilder, an IFBB professional, a food scientist, and a founding co-owner of our podcast sponsor, International Protein.

Ash Horton:
In this episode, Christine gives us a quick summary of which supplements are best for muscle growth. We discuss peptides, creatine, the right proteins to use, and of course, amino acids.

Ash Horton:
Christine, best supplements for muscle growth. What are they?

Christine Envall:
Okay. Of course, it's International Protein. Anything by International Protein is good for muscle growth.

Ash Horton:
You might be slightly biased there.

Christine Envall:
Well, yes and no. I mean obviously I do develop products for what I think will work. Muscle growth being one of the things that I had in mind obviously when we develop them. But in all seriousness, obviously the number one thing for muscle growth has to be protein. If you don't have extra protein, you're not going to grow the muscle. I mean obviously if you have protein without training, you're also not going to grow the muscle, so. But we'll assume that people are training. But just going back, this is one of the questions that we did get asked.

Christine Envall:
I put up a post on my Instagram about what people wanted to hear about and obviously a lot of people kind of said, "Yeah, we don't know what to take to actually grow muscle." But I do kind of want to clarify that you do have to train because some people do think that just taking a supplement and not putting the work in, in the gym is going to grow muscle, but the two things obviously go hand in hand. So most of us are probably going to go, "Yeah, of course", but I do just want to put that out there that don't just go and take some supplements and then say they didn't work, if you weren't doing a training program or something to actually make you grow muscle.

Christine Envall:
And that can be the thing that people aren't necessarily following a program that helps them to grow muscles. So, let's assume that you're doing that. The number one supplement obviously that you would look at taking is a protein. And everyone automatically kind of says, "How about post-workout?" But I personally believe that you need to look at protein as a quantity that you need to have throughout the day and an amount that you need to have based on your body weight, and I guess a little bit your body type, but mostly your body weight.

Christine Envall:
Let's assume that you're wanting to grow muscle. I'm going to have to convert these back into kilos, but if you're going to go about 1.2 grams per pound, so it's a little over that one for one. So it ends up at a couple of grams per kilo or just over. If you're weighing 70 kilos, you might be wanting to have up around about 180 grams per day of protein, which is quite a lot when you think about it. So then you would break that down into say five different meals, so you wouldn't try to have that all straight after your training-

Ash Horton:
And some of them would be meats and some of them would be powders.

Christine Envall:
Exactly, exactly. So I always like to have that mixture. But that's really why the powders come about is because if you're trying to get 180 grams of protein, keeping in mind that steak has about 28 grams per 100 grams uncooked and chicken has about 20 grams, maybe 22 per 100 grams-

Ash Horton:
It's a lot of meat.

Christine Envall:
That's hell of a lot of meat.

Ash Horton:
And it's a decent bill as well, isn't it yeah?

Christine Envall:
Exactly. So protein powder is not only a convenient way because think about physically having to chew all of that, having to cook all of that and pay for all of that. So protein powder is perfect for fitting in there. Some obviously are suited to have straight after training, but if you're eating five meals a day or six meals a day, then you want to have pretty much try to make it as equal an amount at each meal. And that's where it comes to that kind of, roughly 30 grams a meal, somewhere between 25 and 35 is ideal. And that's roughly what a serving of protein powder has, so that would be your number one.

Christine Envall:
If you're training really, really hard and you have that requirement for protein and you're not fulfilling it, then you are going to be compromising your muscle growth. So that's simple without taking anything else on top of that.

Christine Envall:
My next supplement for muscle growth really would be creatine because obviously to grow muscle, you need to overstress the muscle and you need to like give it a reason to basically repair, which is where the growth comes in. So if you're just training at a status quo, you're not putting the weights up, you'll get a certain amount of muscle growth initially, but then if you're not continuing to progress and not continuing to put more overload on your muscle and do more weight, then the body has no reason to grow that muscle. Like it's at a status quo. So you need to continue to go that little bit heavier or find ways of putting your muscle under more tension. And we've talked about different rep speeds and we've talked about drop sets, and we've talked about other ways of doing that because just going heavy isn't really suitable for everybody, particularly as they get older.

Christine Envall:
But if you're able to use Heavy Weight then that's basically the number one thing that you need to do. But where the creatine fits in is it allows you to go heavier, it gives you more strength and that's going to allow you to progress. So it's a really, really good supplement for that.

Ash Horton:
And do you use it all the time or is it something you'd cycle on, cycle off?

Christine Envall:
It's something... Like with the Kre-Alkalyn that we have, you don't technically have to cycle off it and on it. But what I do find is that you can build up a little bit too much creatine in your new system and that can cause problems around the uric acid build up, and people getting gout and things like that, which is very, very painful and it feels like maybe you've broken a toe or something. And it is something again that as people get older or just some people are more susceptible to it. And I know that myself, if I do creatine, it's kind of hit and miss, like sometimes I might be fine for three months and then sometimes I might use it for a month and then find that I have a problem. So it's something I can't... Because I eat everything very consistently I can't say, "Oh, maybe it's another factor affecting it." So it is just something that to be mindful of.

Christine Envall:
So what I try to do is just have it on training days and then sometimes will come off for a couple of weeks just to let that level settle out in my body, but other people will be perfectly fine. But it's definitely... We've talked about creatine in the past where you don't necessarily have to take it pre-workout or post-workout, it just needs to be on a day and it will build up in your system and obviously that's proven by-

Ash Horton:
There's a huge amount of research behind it from horse racing. Yeah?

Christine Envall:
Humans now as well. It started out in horse racing more than 20 years ago. But if you look at the studies, they go back into the late '90s, it's one of the most or probably the most research natural supplement around. Yeah, over 20 years worth of research and there's I think over 80% of the papers are all positive, definitely there is a benefit from that. So that's why for muscle growth it would have to be, after protein, the number one... I guess what you'll call supplement because protein powder, I guess I call a food, not a supplement. So that would be my next one to go to if you're trying to grow some muscle. Now protein is one thing, but we don't really under talk calories.

Christine Envall:
And again, if you're trying to gain muscle, you can have all the protein in the world. If you're not getting the calories that you need, that protein is going to get used for energy systems. So you need to actually be in a calorie excess to grow muscle as well. So with that may come a little bit of body fat but you obviously need to get the calories in, and some people can do that just from eating food, but that's where products like Extreme Mass and the Heavy Weight gainer come in. And we did a whole podcast on that and talked about the differences there, but those are obviously the two products that if you're trying to get extra calories in and you're trying to gain weight, so you're trying to gain muscle, then those would be the ones that you would look to to just make sure you are in a calorie surplus.

Christine Envall:
Or again, you can do all the training in the world, eat all the protein in the world, but if you're not eating enough calories overall, again, you're not going to get the muscle growth. And I think that sometimes where people are wanting to stay super ripped, but still grow muscle, they can fall into that trap of under doing the calories. And then the more calories that you have, not to the point of gaining a lot of body fat, but obviously more calories give you more energy, allows you to train harder. So you're then able to progress more because you got more strength and you're pushing heavier weight. So it all ties around in a little circle like that. So they're very, very simply the best ones if you're trying to grow muscle.

Christine Envall:
Now obviously then you have things like your Complete Aminos, which is all of your essential amino acids and those are ones which can minimize, not the breakdown because you have to break down the muscle during your training session to build it back up again. But those are the ones which put the amino acids into your system so that you have something to draw on when your body starts to recover again.

Christine Envall:
And you minimize, I guess, the detrimental damage and allows just the essential damage to occur to the muscle. So that would be another product where if you're trying to grow muscle and you're wanting to optimize the conditions in your body, then that would be another product that I would look to. And that would be really quite simply the... I don't want to overdo it because there's things around like HMB, there's test boosters, there's all kind of things which have been around on the market, but nothing that has a whole lot of really, really substantial proof.

Christine Envall:
Let's say like creatine is very, very definitive. Things like HMB, say that yes, there may be some strange increase, but again, it's sometimes mainly just in older people. It's not a really cut and dry conclusive thing where 100% you're going to get results out of that. But it's certainly something that falls into that category of a product that people can use for muscle gain. The other thing that we will probably talk about it in a whole separate podcast is peptides. Now I just wanted to clear up because I know when I mentioned it to you, Ash, you were like, "Oh, you've got peptides in your Amino Charged WPI"-

Ash Horton:
Yeah, very confusing subject for me.

Christine Envall:
Yeah. So peptide is just a word that means that you took a whole protein and you broke it up using enzyme to smaller amino acid chains, because obviously a protein is made up of a whole series of amino acids strung together in various different formats, and that's every protein is like that. So then to make a peptide, a peptide just means either like die or tri, like two or three little amino acid chains. So it's much more quickly absorbed.

Christine Envall:
So when it comes to talking about WPI or a whey peptide, it's that whey protein that's been cut up into shorter chains. So your body absorbs it a lot more quickly and then obviously something like a Complete Aminos has the casein peptides, which is all of the amino acids that exist in casein, but just chopped up into smaller pieces. So you get the benefits of those amino acids and the profile of that particular protein, but you get them absorbed very, very rapidly, so you can use them a lot quicker. That's what a peptide is when it relates to the protein powders that we have. Then there's peptides which are essentially, I guess, biological substances which either... I mean they have so many different uses, but the ones that we're talking about I guess in relation to sports supplements and really anti-aging, is the ones which will either imitate growth hormone or help your body to produce more growth hormone or repair injury, basically work at that level within the body.

Christine Envall:
So what we will do is we will do a whole separate podcast on this topic because I think that peptides got a little bit of a bad reputation, I guess, because people are very confused about... Are they steroids? Are they drugs? What are these things? And now, I think with more knowledge and more research, they actually have a really big place in anti-aging. They are medically prescribed but they are something for people who are over 40, with the right health checks, are able to get them prescribed by a doctor. And they have massive benefits around, I guess, anti-aging because most people don't want to I guess suffer what comes with natural aging.

Ash Horton:
What about the people under 40? Can they use them as well?

Christine Envall:
Now that's an interesting thing. So, if it comes to something like injury healing and stuff like that, yes. Something like growth hormone, I guess the argument is will they get a benefit because if their natural levels are already at a certain level, will it still continue to work? And I have to do a little bit more research because I only kind of looked at it as an older person because I'm also not sure if they're available to younger people. Because obviously once you're over a certain age, there's certain things which are more available to people because of that anti aging.

Christine Envall:
So, I guess it's the responsibility of the medical profession to make that decision that your levels drop at a certain age and if your levels are low, then you can be boosted, like HRT and things like that. They don't give that to someone who doesn't need it, so it's all about bringing you back to your normal range, not augmenting your normal level. But we'll delve into that on a different podcast because I do need to check the legality around that, because as I said, I know that-

Ash Horton:
Sounds like a fascinating discussion.

Christine Envall:
It's a fascinating discussion and there's a lot of different compounds, which all do various different things, but basically they are around putting your body back into that state as to when you were young. Because obviously when you're younger, you can train heavier and harder and longer, and you can be a little bit less diligent on your diet and your body just recovers and you don't lay down the body fat. So all of that is to do with the different hormones that are existing within your body. So the peptides are functioning in there to try to replace, bring you back to that younger age group.

Christine Envall:
And it can be other things as well like things like hair growth and skin, how your skin is and everything and all of that can help on a whole bunch of different things because there's just such a broad range of them. So as I said, we'll talk about that in more detail, but I just hopefully cleared up about the difference between a peptide that you see in a food product, which has nothing to do with the peptides which will be associated with anti-aging and potentially fat loss and muscle growth and injury recovery, and those things which are more pertinent to weight training.

Ash Horton:
Okay, so just to summarize what we've talked about on this episode. So the supplements that are best for muscle growth are?

Christine Envall:
A protein. And, I suppose I probably should say what type of protein.

Ash Horton:
It's multiple proteins, isn't it?

Christine Envall:
Multiple proteins, but if you're going to talk about the post-workout one, then obviously a quick acting one but-

Ash Horton:
WPI.

Christine Envall:
WPI, yeah Amino Charged WPI. But if you're talking about throughout the rest of your day, then I always do encourage people to go with a more blended type of protein or something which has a broader variety of amino acids in it. But protein as a category, then obviously the creatine or Kre-Alkalyn, Complete Aminos, which is your essential amino acids. And if you're a person who really can't get enough food in then add weight gainer. So something like Extreme Mass or the Heavy Weight gainer are your calorie givers because they will give you still some protein and contribute towards that. But it's very, very simple. You don't have to be worried about whether you're having a whole bunch of... Whether you've got your pre-workout or your pharmaceutical type, HMB's and test boosters and all that kind of thing. Keep it very, very simple. 

Ash Horton:
Okay. Fascinating stuff, Christine, thank you very much.

Christine Envall:
Thank you, Ash.

Ash Horton:
Words of wisdom. If you like what you've heard, recognize that these tips are free. So show your support by becoming a loyal International Protein customer by jumping online, hunt our product down and hit that Buy Now button. So once again, like, share and subscribe to our podcast so we can continue to bring you these episodes from our one and only, Aussie muscle guru, three times world champion, Christine Envall.